They found a couple of high-school kids, on the swimming team, and they went down to survey the drowned-out hall. The water had slowed enough to put a boat out; they rowed down Front Street, over the back yards of the cottages, into the River Road. "Must be around here," Brayer said doubtfully, staring at the muddy water. "Some of the houses got moved, I guess...." It wasn't there. One of the boys eventually went down, but only for a moment. He came up sputtering and grunting, his eyes squeezed tight; when they got him into the boat and he could talk coherently again he said, "Sorry, Mr. Brayer. Maybe there's still some of the firehouse down there. But that isn't water, it's plain mud. Even if I had a face mask, I couldn't see--and I don't have a face mask." They took him back to the school to have his eyes looked after. Chief Brayer leaned dizzily against the door frame, watching Dr. Brandeis bathing the kid's eyes. What, he wondered, was Hebertown going to be like without Henry? * * * * * Mickey Groff woke up. They must have given me a shot of something, he thought clearly, and sat up. A girl in a white uniform with gold bars at the collar leaned over him and said, "You ought to go back to sleep. You've only had about two hours." He shook his head. "How's the old man?" "Which one?" "Starkman--the burgess." But she didn't know the name. Groff stood up and staggered to a chair. What was an army nurse doing here, he wondered. Wings and a bar; maybe they'd flown in help from outside. Somebody helped him to a garage, empty of cars, with duckboards laid over the mud on the floor; there was a sort of emergency feeding station organized there and he got hot coffee laced with thick canned milk, syrupy with sugar. He went out in the sunshine and drank it gratefully. Sunshine! He slowly accepted the fact that it wasn't raining any more. The sky was spotty with clouds, but there was a lot of blue. "Mr. Groff." He tried to get to his feet; it was Artie Chesbro's wife. She stopped him. "Where's everybody?" he asked. "Sleeping, mostly. Except my husband, who is out looking for orphans to rob. Have you seen Henry?" He blinked. "Henry?" "The burgess. Mr. Starkman." He shook his head. She said gently, "I've been with him all morning. If they don't get help for him soon--" He noticed that her eyes were unaccountably filled with tears. "I thought I saw an army nurse--" "Yes. But they didn't have oxygen, and that's what he needs. It's on its way, I guess, or anyway they say it is." She looked at the coffee. "Wait a minute. I want some of that." Mickey Groff looked after her and sighed. Now, why was she mothering the old man? And what was that "orphans to rob" remark? It had been fairly obvious that she and her husband were not cut from the same bolt, but was it possible for her to see her husband that clearly, and keep on living with him?